Religion

I am a bad Jew.

My knowledge of my heritage is anecdotal. My practice of my culture is reduced to lighting the menorah at Hanukkah. While I have great respect and appreciation for any person who contributes vitally to our society, I don’t have any special respect or appreciation for someone just because of his Jewishness. So I had a lot of nerve getting my hackles up because Back to School Night was held on Rosh Hashana.

Last spring, a fifth-grade girl approached me in the lunchroom with a question. Asalah is a Muslim student from Yemen. Our connection had started right there in the school cafeteria two years ago. I was passing out trays and sporks when the third-grade version of Asalah approached me with a question about whether or not the “ham” sandwich was really pork. I told her no, that it was turkey, and shared with her that my religion, Judaism, has dietary laws as well and that I don’t eat pork either. We’ve been pals ever since.

Perhaps you’ve been wondering about the long hair of the Sikh student in your classroom. Or maybe you’ve joined debates about whether your Sikh student can carry a sword in the classroom. Perhaps you’ve mistaken your Sikh student for a Muslim all along. To help prevent misunderstandings in your school, here are some facts to know about Sikhs.

It was a brisk New England day as I walked out of the community center with a group of Somali Muslim women from my adult English as a Second Language class. My students were laughing and joking, their hijabs blowing in the breeze. We had finished our unit on the New World, drawing connections between Europeans immigrating to America and Somalis immigrating to Lewiston and southern Maine. Suddenly, a local woman shouted, "Terrorists!"

Religious topics have long been a touchy subject in public schools and none of them touchier than atheism.

For young people though, the taboo surrounding unbelief appears to be disappearing. Recent surveys have found that younger Americans are the least likely to be religious. According to the American Religious Identification Survey, 29 percent of 18-29 year olds are religiously unaffiliated, compared with 15 percent of the population as a whole. And a 2006 Pew Research poll found that 1 in 5 young people said they have no religious affiliation, nearly double the proportion of the late 1980s.

Forty percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago, according to a Gallup poll released late last week. In other words, they subscribe to creationism. 

For people who complain about a “war on Christmas,” here’s a reality check. If you’re Christian in the United States, you can generally practice your religion without constraint. Assuming you don’t force your faith on others, being devout is not likely to cost you your job.

While I share some aspects of my life with my students, one thing I don’t share is that I was born Jewish. I am ashamed of my shame, knowing that Jews, like many religious groups, have suffered because of their beliefs. My shame comes from growing up in a community that seemed to typify every negative stereotype about Jews. It also stems from being silent for years whenever someone made an anti-Semitic comment.